Contractor's Academy Prepares Minority Companies For Big Projects

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Graduates of the first RISE class at Sheridan Construction in Macon

Contractor's Academy

Patrick Turner wipes a bead of sweat from his brow as he carefully eyes a meticulously notched plank of wood, and pulls the trigger on his nail gun. He pauses to admire his work.

“We do a little bit of all type of home renovations, plumbing, electrical, drywall, painting, decks, add-ons. Just whatever comes about we’ll try it.”

Turner is building a deck on a home in North Macon. He’s only had a business license for two years, but he’s been working on residential projects like this for over 20. A new initiative in Middle Georgia is helping him get to a more commercial level.

Commercial construction projects rely a lot on federal, state and local funding that’s tied to using minority and women-owned businesses. The Department of Transportation distributes billions of dollars to fund construction across the nation, but it’s sometimes hard to find those minority subcontractors.   One large company in Macon is taking matters into its own hands by starting a program to teach minority business owners how to manage large-scale projects.

In 2017 Sheridan Construction, one of the largest commercial construction companies in Middle Georgia built the RISE program (Readiness Initiative through Sheridan Education) to help address a shortage of minority subcontractors prepared to handle commercial projects. Ronny Williams is Sheridan’s CEO. He says the program was as much about helping Macon and minority businesses as it is about strengthening his own company.

“We know the makeup of Bibb County is heavily minority and they should get a portion of the work,” Williams said. “But if they don’t know how to run their business professionally then they’re not going to get a portion of the work, so we felt this was the best way to do that.”

The RISE program teaches minority contractors the basics of running a business. Think of it like a Contractor’s Academy. Some smaller companies are masters of their crafts, but novices when it comes to the business side of things. Sheridan Construction reached out to Alex Habersham, owner of the Macon Black Pages to find contractors that were willing to learn and prepared to use the academy’s teaching.

“Economic development is the key that drives a lot other disciplines,” Habersham said. “The better that these businesses do, then the better the community does. There’s an old saying that says a rising tide raises the whole ship.”

Linda Brennan of the consulting company Qwest Group, helped prepare a curriculum for RISE. For six months, Brennan and instructors brought in by Sheridan taught contractors the basics, from interacting with customers professionally to bidding on a construction project to getting ahold of necessities like insurance.

“Working on a commercial job site is so different than being a homeowner’s handyman and so a big part of the education was helping them translate from one context to the other,” Brennan said.

Participants in the RISE program gained feedback from speakers and even interacted with other contractors on Sheridan’s $44 million commercial project at Mercer University. Patrick Turner, the small contractor, says the experience was invaluable.

“Just being able to go out and be able to look at certain types of jobs and know how to go about bidding on them and things like that and how to talk to people about what it is they want,” Turner said.

Sheridan Construction’s Ronny Williams says keeping in contact afterwards is where the real work begins.

“This is a very long term project and we tell each one of them when you have a problem on any job come to us,” Williams said. “We tell them to come to us. We’ve got to be there to support them from now on.”

Ten businesses participated in the first class of RISE participants and seven people graduated. It’s still a little early to tell whether the classes will result in minority contractors landing more commercial jobs, but Sheridan organizers are optimistic. They plan on having another class in the spring.